Here's the way it is: the rich are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. The middle class is disappearing. Prices are rising. Hope is fading. But uh... don't let it get you down.

Let's just give it to you straight, shall we? Here in the USA, the land of the free, the richest 1% of earners have doubled their share of the nation's income over the past 30 years. (And who's been losing their income? The middle class, of course. Though you knew that already.) Despite this, and despite the blatant and unavoidable fact that subsidizing the poor is now the only way to rebuild our shattered middle class, the price of everything that the middle class needs is rising. Home prices are rising. College prices are rising. The price of nursing homes for your old parents are rising. Even the price of the diesel you need to make truck bombs—not that you would, uh, ever make a truck bomb—is rising.

But look, hey, don't sweat. You have more immediate concerns. You can't even afford water any more. If squabbling Europeans don't solve this debt crisis, we're staring down another prolonged global recession. And you can't afford to stay, but you're too poor to move.